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Month / August 2006

Here are the fine groomsmen I was with for my buddy Adam Benjamin’s wedding. It was a great time – very well might be the most enjoyable wedding I’ve been to. This could be a result of actually being in the wedding in full and seeing what it’s ultimately all about.

Highly recommended, by the way. Being a groomsman, that is. You get all the perks with no committment.

Well, except maybe the getting laid afterwards but not feeling guilty when you wake up in the morning. I didn’t try to test the theory out.

Today was a good day. Just wanted everyone to know. That is all.

And that’s a lie… there’s more. Here’s something funny. I was in Barnes and Noble yesterday reading The Fountainhead, and I heard this woman talking extrodinarily too loud, so I thought I may as well eavesdrop because she was clearly violating my soundspace. Anyway, some of the memorable quotes were:
“Oh yeah, guys in minivans turn me on! There he is, with his three kids… and probably his girlfriend in the passenger seat…”

“You know, you should totally use MySpace and bitch her out. Tell her how great life is for you… that things couldn’t be any better”

“Oh, but you know, I’m a bitch. Well, she’s a bitch, and I’m a slut”

[Talking to who I first mistook as her husband, but apparently just a friend] “Oh, you know I could take you on. I know how to deal with guys. All you have to do is rub a certain area for long enough.”

(edit: at the behest of Tricia Dituro, I’m finishing this entry, so beginning of a new week doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, really)…

Things are much better, now. I’ve come to find that often the interim and its frustrations can be assuaged by working through them. There’s something very Godly about Zen – sometimes the best thing one can do is embrace the things we’re hurt by and walk through them. One of the most crippling things in times of stress is observation.

I’m still in my quest to read The Fountainhead, and as I was reading tonight, I found this great conversation between two characters – Dominique Francon and Alvah Scarrett. I found it to be rather indicting for Christians. Quickly, Dominique says that she’d rather have zero expectations from people because she’d rather not have to deal with people making heroic things happen, only to find they go to a burlesque show for entertainment. I read that and thought about all the people who have turned their backs from Christianity becuase of people who do little to reflect Christ in their lives. And, to be honest, I have frustration on both sides: Christians, why aren’t we trying to live a less dualistic, more faithful lives; non-Christians, why aren’t you giving us the grace you so expect from us in return?

It’s a place that all Christians on their journeys have to face to make it relevant to theirs and others lives: when does one let go of making their own decisions and let themselves be lorded over? When does the pursuit of holiness take precidence over popularity? In fact, when does the pursuit of holiness trump every other worldly desire? It doesn’t mean that popularity doesn’t come, but it can be fleeting and put to sacrifice for God’s sake.

Which, to go back to the top of post, is the tweak I like to think that makes Zen and Christianity compatible: the only constant is the triune God. I cling to Him and He holds me, and everything is worth letting go of.

This week has been one of the more difficult in my short life thus far. Consider:

I drove upwards of 1000 miles in 4 days from Erie to Grove City to Cranberry to Saxonbug to Butler to Grove City to Butler to Cranberry to Westminster Highlands to Erie to Greenford to Youngstown to Greenford to Youngstown to Greenford to Youngstown to Erie.

Half of that driving was for my grandfather’s surgery. It went well, but it was stressful, and I had about 3 hours of sleep the night before it, so I was tired, and haven’t really woke up yet.

I’ve had to make up for mistakes from being burnt out in May after everything that happened then. Mainly, I’ve had to fix not really taking care of my keys to well to the apartment building, and now more recently I can’t find my walkie-talkie.

I feel frustrated because I’m making up for things I did months ago, and feel like I’m being drug around so that I can’t take the time to reflect and get going.

I’m better than how I’ve performed, and while I know I’ve had stuff happen, it’s still frustrating.

God still loves me. I have a life. I have a soul. Tomorrow will be a new day, and my students will come. I will feel like the capable staff memeber I am. It’s the interim that always sucks.

…I saw this because someone had searched for it, and it came up. Anyway, I really like this entry. I was suprised I wrote it.

A couple things got into my head today and I figured I’d share if for only my own benefit.

When I first came to Grove City, one of the first things I looked at were the two rocks in front of Harbison chapel. Of particular significance was the one towards MAP. On it were the Men Of The Year. Awarded by the honorary, it shows the best and brightest men ever to walk on the campus of Grove City. And I said to myself then that I’d work to get to that level and perhaps be lucky enough to have my name on the rock. And here I am in my Senior year and I thought about the rock today with a certain twinge of sadness. I look at what I’ve done over the last three years and see that I could match up to the graduates last year – A member of OB, and RA and an RD, community activities, active for awhile in the Prison Ministry, Delta Rho Sigma Chaplain, and an actor in the Grove City College one acts. I mean, I’ve done it… except honoraries. My grades sit at a 3.24 – .6 below what they need to be to be thought of for ODK, the main honorary. No Operation Top Management, no nothin’. And it bothers me because the main reason I wanted to be on that rock was legacy – I wanted to feel like all I’ve been doing to try to make Grove City better would be worth it, and people would look at that rock and say “Adam Anderson, he must of done something”

Nothing scares me more than anonymity. To be one of many. To be another face in the crowd and not making a difference. It’s one of the driving factors in my life – to be and do something with this world and to encourage others to do the same. And I felt like it all culminates on a plaque on a stone in a place where everyone on the entire campus walks by.

For a moment I sat here depressed. And then I thought about it and realized how silly that all is. How arrogant of me to think that a rock makes a difference. How silly to think I can’t make a difference. I’ve always wanted to see my work in people come through, and I look at the guys on my hall last year. I look at Paul Peal and Elizabeth Dunn and see what God’s doing in them and how incredible each of them are, and think that maybe God used me in their lives. And the more I thought, the more I realized that God doesn’t want a flashy servant. Jesus speaks about the fact that when someone’s serving and giving, don’t let the left hand know what the right is doing. In the end that’s the point. To be the best servant I can be for God and for others, I can’t be aiming for the accolades, but for the joy that serving entails.

Because in the end, I’d rather have one of my guys feel I made a difference in their life than receive a thousand Man of the Year awards.

Hey all, if you don’t mind, I could use some prayer/thoughts/concerns/etc about my grandfather. Apparently his heart is fairly deteriorated, and will be having a triple bypass and valve replacement surgery next Tuesday.

I’m really nervous about it. I feel like it’s a mix of knowing my grandpa is nervous about it, but also being two hours away from my family and knowing there’s absolutely nothing I can to remedy anything. I can only be here. I have a cell phone and the proper numbers. I have a car, but what good will that do me until Tuesday?

I also have a job, and it starts on Monday anew.

It is times like this (as, to be honest, all times should be) that I learn how to depend more deeply on God and His grace and perfection, though this a task that isn’t easy.

On a positive note, my office is looking great, and my apartment got a much needed facelift.

You might never read my blog again. That makes me sad, becuase I think what you wrote was compelling. For those of you who might not have read your comment, here it is:

The sooner the Arabs and the Jews exterminate each other as well as the entire U.S.of A. the better for the rest of the world.
The Bible and Koran are total myth and fable. Harry Potter is as believable.
All of you “believers” live in fantasyland.
Will Sinclair

Anyway, I’m bringing this back up again only because I want to maybe spurn some conversation about this stuff. You bring up two great subjects:

Arab and Jew fighting against each other

My faith (and I think more specifically Christianity in general) and how I live with it

Hopefully over the next couple entries I’ll have a chance to talk about both of those things, not becuase I want to prove right or wrong, but to add something to the discussion. Understand, Will, the last thing I want to do is get on your case, or try to beat my beliefs upside your head. What you do with the info is your choice, but I’m here to provide. So please, Will and anyone who has something to say about either of those subjects, sound off!

I had been planning on write a few entries on worldview, and specifially this reformational worldview I’ve found so attractive. But not tonight. Tonight is sleep!